Almost anything that is put on the internet that goes viral, will last forever. For many reasons, this significant impact can do good things. But to some, this can cause embarrassment and social issues that are difficult to deal with.
One of which is posts about intimate photos and videos, especially without the subject's consent.
Twitter may have less active users that the giant Facebook. But its much simpler interface and rapid-spreading tweets influenced a larger number of victims, and audience.
Following Google's and Reddit's move to prohibit porn, or especially the likes of revenge porn, the 140-character microblogging site is updating its Privacy Policy.
Twitter in particular has been criticized with mishandling complaints about online harassment and bullying, particularly against women. The company has been faulted with letting those individuals to run free with less to no problem. Twitter's Dick Costolo also admitted that "we suck at dealing with abuse and trolls on the platform and we've sucked at it for years."
Costolo said he was embarrassed about the company's reputation and took "personal responsibility" for the company's failure to address the problem.
To patch its weakness, Twitter is putting a halt to the spread of revenge porn in its platform. The new Twitter rules are plainly stated, and are designed to put a stop to revenge porn:
"Private information: You may not publish or post other people’s private and confidential information, such as credit card numbers, street address or Social Security/National Identity numbers, without their express authorization and permission. You may not post intimate photos or videos that were taken or distributed without the subject’s consent."
With that new rule, victims can report posts (tweets) that offended them in that particular reason as an abuse. Then they have to confirm the materials that are featuring them without their consent.
Twitter then will process the complaints through its "Trust & Safety team" worldwide, 24 hours a day.
Users who violate the Terms of Service can be locked out of their accounts until they delete the posts. Repeating offenders will be suspended from Twitter. And in the case of revenge porn, Twitter will remove the posts as long as the person complaining can verify that it is him or her in the photo.
However, Twitter cautioned that not all unwanted postings will be forbidden under the new rules. In such case like 2014's celebrity hacking scandal series that flooded Twitter. "We may consider the context and nature of the information posted, local privacy laws, and other case-specific facts," said Twitter.
The Limited Power and Immunity
Tech companies can ban specific contents from their platform by updating their rules. But what they do to prevent such abuse, is limited. Again by law.
Policy that bans explicit materials that shows nude pictures or videos, should pass the law before they can be effective. Not every state in the U.S., or other nations worldwide pass revenge porn law. For this matter, the new rule is largely ineffective.
Reddit, and some large companies, such as Facebook and Twitter, are immune to the law when it comes to third parties in posting anything. The Communications Decency Act protects the websites from being held liable for the content users post on their platform, making it difficult for authorities to go after them.
For this matter, some revenge porn may miss some victims.
For this reason, many activists have been pushing for a law to govern it. Such legislation is a threat for others to start cracking down posts that include porn materials without the subject's consent.
Activists said that tech companies that wanted to tackle this issue could do much more than the law itself. Big tech companies have more resources and expertise than the government in term of innovation solutions. If they can help each other out to fix this problem, they can prevent the spreading on that explicit content.
Twitter's new rule is only the first step for the company to put a halt in revenge porn, but for activists who have been eager to get revenge porn taken seriously by tech companies and lawmakers, they now have an upper hand.
